


After

by yelenabelov



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Post-Order 66, a gratuitous use of italics, the tiniest hint of ahsoka/barriss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 04:55:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21368518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yelenabelov/pseuds/yelenabelov
Summary: Barriss Offee, after.
Kudos: 16





	After

**1.**

They wrap an electric collar around her neck and tighten the cuffs on her wrist. They hate her, she realises, these clone troopers. It’s hard to realise it through their armour (it’s hard to realise they feel _anything_ under their armour), but she knows they do.

They can take her lightsaber and her title but she’ll always have the Force. She knows what they think of her.

She is Barriss Offee, traitor of the Jedi. Which makes her Barriss Offee, traitor to the clones.

They don’t see how unfair it all is, they don’t understand. The Force runs through all living things and on the battlefield, Barriss was the one who felt it drain from the living.

The Separatists don’t use clone troopers, just droids, so Barriss knows that every death she’s ever felt, bar twenty-eight, is the Order’s fault.

**2\. **

For the first four months, Barriss Offee waits for a visit that won’t visit.

Their identity, even to her, is unknown, but she doesn’t have many—well, not _friends_… but she doesn’t have many people who would visit.

She peruses the list.

Master Luminara, unlikely. She remembers sad eyes, a bond left in tatters. Skywalker, perhaps, fuelled by misdirection, impatience and fury. If the guards permit him access, that is, though Barriss can’t recall a time where Skywalker didn’t get what he wanted.

Masters Yoda, Windu, Ti, Tinn, Mundi, Kenobi, the countless others, all those present at her confession, those who accepted her admission of guilt yet denied their own; certainly not.

More than anything, though, Barriss wishes Ahsoka would visit. She remembers celebrating her birthday (_the first day of the tenth month_), dining with her in unappealing venues (_Ahsoka prefers her food raw and without spices_) and simply sparring with her.

She wants to do countless things, to apologise, to explain, to deflect the blame, yet—

Barriss, an otherwise quick learner, leans in on her patience; it takes her seven more months to realise no one’s coming.

**3.**

There is no death, there is the Force—only, Barriss can’t the Force, _just_—

—the weight of her body on her knees, the cool kiss of a blaster’s barrel as it’s pushed to her forehead. She stumbles, placing a webbed hand on a nearby fungal tree for support. Something sharp sears her back. Water rushes into her lungs. She is shot from the sky and dies in a blur of heat, metal and pain.

She is angry, panicked, resigned. _What’s in the trees? There is no chaos, there is harmony. Why have they pulled up? Caleb, run! Gods, not the younglings—_

On Coruscant, Barriss falls to the floor of her cell.

**4.**

The Order was betrayed.

She knows the Jedi were betrayed because the clones are still here, lurking outside her cell, but the Jedi are dead. She felt it. And Barriss knows it was the Republic who betrayed the Jedi because the clones are _still_ here, lurking outside her cell.

Her mind is a whirlpool of emotion. She’s relieved, _sick_, vindicated, _she’s going to be sick_, it’s what they deserve for creating life and ordering it to die, _she needs to_—

Her rations are slid through the slot in her door. Briefly, Barriss spies the gloved hand of her guard, a clone, and she wants nothing more than to grab it.

Past that, she’s not sure. Should she demand answers? Some part of her, small and hidden, wants to grasp it tight and rip it from his body. Mainly, though, she just wants something, _someone_, to touch.

The clone’s hand retreats, and the moment passes.

**5.**

She remembers introducing herself with a curtsy, concealing her interest, and saying, “Padawan learner Barriss Offee, at your service.”

Ahsoka’s probably dead now, like Master Luminara and Skywalker and—even Master Yoda, she speculates, even he could not survive this. The Jedi Order, shot and drowned and betrayed, yet Barriss remains.

Barriss isn’t a Padawan learner anymore, and she isn’t a Jedi. It’s the reason she’s not dead. She isn’t the betrayed but the betrayer.

Barriss Offee, traitor to the Jedi Order.

There is no death, there is only—_this_. Her cell, her solitude, her memories.

**6.**

It’s autumn. She can feel the leaves leaving the trees, the grass shrivelling. The Force can’t be taken from her.

Though she’s not sure what exact day it is, she thinks some part of her, the part she keeps hidden and silent, might because anger coils in her stomach like a snake.

_Emotion, yet peace_. Her breathing is heavy. _Ignorance, yet knowledge_. She adjusts her position. _Passion, yet serenity_. She can’t hold her anger in.

There is no _serenity_ here, she thinks. There is no serenity _anywhere_.

She remembers Ahsoka nearly taking the blame for _her_ actions. She remembers the clone troopers removing her headdress because she _might have something hidden in it_. She remembers the _crushing_ wave of disappointment in their bond when her master discovered what happened.

This time, when the clone trooper delivers her food, Barriss snatches the tray and throws it against the wall. She imagines something large and invisible wrapping itself around her bed. She imagines destroying her cell and escaping into the night.

She ignores the surprised cries outside her cell. _They betrayed the Jedi, just like her, so why is she in here while they’re out there_—

There’s a sharp pain enveloping her neck, and Barriss collapses.

**7.**

Sometimes, Barriss wishes she had died with the Jedi.

Not because she’s one of them, she’s not… but because her muscles ache from her confinement, she doesn’t sleep for the taste of copper and soot in her mouth, she can’t feel anyone tying her to the Force.

She wonders when she lost her master’s bond. She can’t recall. At her confession? Or after, in-transit to the Republic’s highest security prison? Or did it, however unlikely, last until death, severed by the last breath?

She thinks of all the people she’s ever known and wonders where their graves are.

**8.**

Barriss knows something is happening before the clones do.

She can feel it. It lingers thick and sweltering in the atmosphere, to the point where Barriss flounders in it. She is filled with hatred and passion and an emptiness remarkably familiar to her own.

With each day, these feelings grow. She meditates more than ever—if such a thing is possible for someone with little else to do.

_Is this what happened to the Jedi?_ Barriss thinks. _Or is this the Jedi?_

**9.**

When Darth Vader visits, he explains how the Empire’s stability wanes with an emerging rebellion and emphasises the galaxy’s need for Inquisitors, loyal Force-practitioners who will restore the Empire’s rule and vanquish the escaped Jedi.

_Escaped?_ Barriss thinks, a blur of names flitting through her mind; none stick.

After a clone rushes in and whispers to him something about _sabotaged systems_ and _the Emperor requests_, the Sith disappears with a final glance.

She must know him. Barriss can feel his hatred, and it feels personal.

**10.**

Somewhere in between the Sith explaining the betrayal of the Jedi and the opportunity for second chances, Barriss realises this hulking amalgamation of plastiform and flesh is indeed an old acquaintance.

He breathes laboriously, more machine than man, but the Force surrounds him like a storm, tumultuous and heavy, and it is undeniably the man once known as Anakin Skywalker.

When he finishes speaking, the implicit becomes explicit; join me, join the Empire, defeat the Jedi, defend the peace, and Barriss realises he didn’t listen to her all those years ago either.

She wonders how Anakin Skywalker could pick the Republic over the Jedi. Was it the Senator of Naboo who convinced him? Barriss knows they were friendly. Or was it the Chancellor? Did Skywalker find it easy to betray Ahsoka and Master Kenobi? What about Masters Windu and Yoda?

Barriss crosses her legs, rests her hands in her lap and says, “I think Ahsoka would be disappointed in the both of us, Skywalker.”

He recoils. Barriss hardens her nerves.

She hears the hum of a lightsaber as it ignites. A red shadow is cast over her face. She can feel the soft heat as it approaches, greeting her shoulder and leaving by her hip.

Finally, Barriss thinks, there is the Force.

**Author's Note:**

> updated.


End file.
